


What? What the Hell is This?!

by Duckseamail



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Katara and Toph bonding! woot woot, SO, TW for blood, Toph gets her period!, Western Air Temple, its awkward but sweet, not super graphic but its there, yay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:54:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25862407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duckseamail/pseuds/Duckseamail
Summary: Toph was not expecting to wake up and find out she was dying.Katara didn't realize she'd have to give someone a quick puberty lesson so early in the morning.But somehow, it's not a completely horrible experience.
Relationships: Toph Beifong & Katara
Comments: 6
Kudos: 103





	What? What the Hell is This?!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much @[greeksalad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greeksalad) for beta-ing for me!!!
> 
> This story takes place at the Western Air Temple, just after Zuko and Aang are back from their field trip, but before the Boiling Rock.
> 
> Also, at one point Toph tries to describe a period belt thing but obviously she can't see it and so that makes it a REALLY confusing passage to read. So [here](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a6/e4/c1/a6e4c131e87f91347b0d1e9e05fa1ef1.jpg) is what one looks like! This is what I based Katara's off of, but with a few minor changes that I made to fit the time period (and when I was researching, I just went with the "ancient" section of articles on historical menstruation products lol)

“Katara, your cooking sucks,” Toph said. 

Katara looked up, shocked. What was Toph’s _problem?_ She had eaten it yesterday with no complaints, and everyone else -even _Zuko_ \- wasn’t complaining. And honestly, she was at her wit’s end today, what with the fire nation prince constantly hovering over her shoulder, Dad being gone again, and increasing numbers of people to try and get along with. 

So, she wasn’t exactly trying to be polite when she snapped back, “Well, if you hate it so much, why are you even here?” Katara could see everyone around the fire exchanging shocked looks, but she refused to take back what she’d said. 

“Well, I’ll just leave then! ‘Cause it feels like your so-called _food_ just punched me in the gut!” Toph screeched back before she stomped across the open pavilion and hid away in an abruptly-built rock tent.

Aang and Sokka were used to their fighting, but seeing Haru, Teo, Zuko, and even The Duke’s incredulous looks made Katara want to hide. But she refused to let Toph ruin dinner any more than she already had, so she just huffed and poured the remainder of Toph’s stew into her own bowl.

* * *

When Toph woke up the next morning, she felt really weird - probably from missing dinner. She hadn’t meant to be so rude, but her stomach had hurt so much, and her mood had been so bad, that she hadn't even tried stopping the words from leaving her mouth.

She stretched her arms and sat up in her rock tent and immediately froze. Her pants were... _wet?_ She seriously couldn’t have peed her pants, she wasn’t a toddler! Ugh, it felt so uncomfortable, and her cheeks burned furiously with embarrassment. But with all her attention on the discomfort, Toph was shocked to realize that it felt kind of...sticky? _What the heck was going on with her?_

Toph quickly stomped her feet and waited for the vibrations to give her a picture of who was around. All of the boys were still asleep, and Zuko was probably in his room. The only person not lying down was Katara, and she was over where they built the fire for cooking.

She really didn’t want to do this, but she had to figure out what was wrong. Toph lifted her legs, brought her head down, sniffed, and then reeled back like a shot. 

It smelled like blood.

Oh god. Why was she bleeding? Was she gonna _die?_

Tears started welling up in Toph’s eyes, and she tried her best to keep them in, but they started dripping down her face anyway. She really _really_ didn’t want to die. A loud sob ripped out of her throat at that thought. Toph quickly brought her hands to her mouth, but the damage had been done.

“Toph?”

She could feel Katara walking over. _No no no no no_. She was probably still so mad from what Toph had said last night - she’d never want to help now - and who knew if this was even something Katara could fix? 

“Go away!” she shouted, and quickly tucked herself into the corner and pressed her face into her knees. But the metallic scent of her blood sparked fear in her stomach and fuzzed-out her thoughts. Toph weakly waved her hand, but she was too out of it to raise an earth wall.

A hand dropped onto her shoulder, and Toph twitched in surprise.

“Toph, tell me what’s wrong. I can help, I promise.” Katara’s voice was soft and comforting, and Toph was so, so scared that her resolve immediately crumbled to dust.

“I think-” Toph sniffled and wiped some of the tears of her face. “I think I’m dying, Katara.”

“What?” Katara’s voice was incredulous, and she knelt next to Toph and rested her arm over her shoulders.

Toph took a deep breath. “I’m bleeding. Down...there.” She gestured vaguely between her legs, “And that means the bleeding is inside, right? And I know that’s really bad, and so I’ll probably die.” Her voice came out as a wail at the end. Toph knew she was acting like a child, and she hated it.

Katara huffed out a breath, and Toph felt it flutter across her cheek. 

“Oh, Toph, you aren’t dying, it’s just your first time bleeding. It’s completely normal. It just means that your body is able to have kids now. Obviously, you aren’t pregnant, so your body’s just...getting rid of all the stuff it did to prepare. It’ll happen about every month, but you aren’t dying.”

“Oh. Okay.” Toph felt...well, she felt relieved, first off, but also extremely stupid. God, did she really just tell Katara she was _dying_ just because of a little blood that was - apparently - super normal?

They sat in silence together for a few minutes, and then Katara stood up, pulling on Toph’s arm.

“Come on,” she said, “I’ll help you get cleaned up.” Katara ducked out of the tent, and Toph had no choice but to follow. They walked over to Appa, where they stopped and Katara shuffled around in a bag. 

When they continued walking, it was towards the path that led down to a small brook. It was really gross to walk around, but Toph wasn’t about to say anything. This was embarrassing enough already.

The ground beneath her feet slowly turned from packed dirt into smooth sand, and she could hear water bubbling over rocks. They stopped right at the edge, and Katara turned towards her.

“Here,” she said. Something smooth and leathery was shoved into Toph’s hands. “This is mine, but I finished bleeding last week, so you can use it. It’s clean, don’t worry.”

Cleanliness wasn’t even on Toph’s mind. She was worried about how she was supposed to use this...thing. It was made of a bunch of loops that made no sense. And then to make matters worse, Katara shoved a soft, slightly fluffy rectangular thing into her hands too, and then just stood there.

Toph turned her head to Katara and waited. She’d remember eventually.

“Oh! Right, you can’t...hold on.” Huh, that hadn’t taken too long, actually. Sugar Queen was getting better. 

After a few seconds of Katara fiddling with Toph’s hands, she was left holding the leathery thing by two ends of the large loop like a pair of pants. A wider strip of leather hung down in the middle with two clips made of some kind of hard material. 

“Then,” Katara said, “You take this-” Toph felt her brush the fluffy thing against her arm, “-and attach it to the bottom loop and pull it on and tighten it! The pad is made from Appa’s fur, by the way, it works really well.”

“Works really well at _what?"_ Toph huffed. Katara shuffled around uncomfortably before replying.

“The blood. It works really well at soaking up the blood. You’ll have to change it at lunch and in the evening before you sleep, but that’s it.”

Then, Katara just kept standing there. Spirits, why was she like this? Toph had already let herself be babied; she didn’t need to be washed and diapered like an actual one.

“Well? Aren't you gonna leave? I don’t need you anymore.”

Katara took a jerky step back and quickly turned back towards the air temple. “Right. Yeah. Just... let me know if you need anything, Toph.” She started walking away, and her footsteps dragged despondently.

Suddenly, Toph remembered the way she’d snapped at her last night. She’d just been too harsh _again_ , and it made her breath flutter uncomfortably.

“Katara, wait.” Once she’d turned back around, Toph took a deep breath and spit out: “Thanks.” She quickly started tapping her foot so she could see if Katara made any small movements. However, that turned out to be completely unnecessary, because the Earth thudded loudly as Katara rushed over and pulled Toph into a tight hug.

“It’s no problem,” she said, and Toph smiled against Katara’s shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all liked it!!! (The title was a Starkid reference in case anyone was wondering)
> 
> I actually had a really fun time researching for this, and I love Toph and Katara's canon dynamic so I just had to write this!
> 
> I'm on Tumblr @[duckseamail](https://duckseamail.tumblr.com/) so feel free to come talk to me there!


End file.
